Who Are Some of the Richest Women in the USA?

Sisters Christy and Alice Walton, both heirs to the Wal-Mart fortune, are the top two richest women in America. Their net worths were, as of 2014, $38 billion and $34.9 billion respectively. Christy Walton ranks as the sixth richest person in the United States, while Alice Walton ranks ninth.

Another exceptionally wealthy American woman is Jacqueline Mars, who is worth $22 billion. She and her brothers own the Mars candy company, which their grandfather founded in 1911. Other rich American women include Anne Cox Chambers, worth $12.5 billion, the daughter of the man who grew a media empire from the purchase of one newspaper in 1898 and Laurene Powell Jobs, worth $9 billion, the widow of Steve Jobs.

One of the more famous wealthy American women is Oprah Winfrey, who is worth $3 billion. Winfrey earns an annual salary of $315 million through her media holdings. Unlike many others on the list of richest American women, she did not inherit her money, having started life in poverty. She performed exceptionally well in school, earned a scholarship to college and worked her way up in the media jobs ladder beginning as a teen with a job reading the news on local radio.